


promise to get a little better as i get older

by texaswatermelon



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Post-Episode: 8x10, occurs after mallory fixes the timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 02:22:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16777753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/texaswatermelon/pseuds/texaswatermelon
Summary: The penalty for causing bodily harm to a witch is death by fire. Even if that witch happens to be Madison Montgomery.





	promise to get a little better as i get older

**Author's Note:**

> this is a companion piece to [maybe i should ground myself where the mud is](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16707754) and takes place at exactly the same time, but it's not necessary to read that story in order to enjoy this one.
> 
> title from "prom" by sza.

It goes like this:

Zoe gasps back to life and her whole body aches. Kyle hangs off of her, sobbing and wailing and thanking Cordelia, whose eyes are healed for real this time, and she’s glowing, really. Everything is too bright and Zoe has no idea what the fuck is going on, but she could really use a nap.

Later, once she’s regained her senses and all of the pieces have fallen into place, Kyle tells her that Madison packed up all of her shit and and left in a rage once she realized she wasn’t the next Supreme. It sounds like such a Madison thing to do that Zoe doesn’t even question it. She’s glad to be alive, glad that Cordelia is the Supreme, and glad that she gets to rest for a moment. She curls up in bed and Kyle wraps his big, warm arms around her, and for the first time since she got to this academy, things are finally okay.

xx

A week later, when she finally has the time and energy to clean her room again, she finds a stray Louboutin under Madison’s old bed. Madison was careless about a lot of things, but not about fashion. Zoe finds it a little bit strange that she would leave such an expensive shoe behind, even if she did leave in a hurry.

Cordelia has asked Zoe and Queenie to be her new council. They’ve both accepted, and Cordelia has plans to go public, to tell the world about their coven in the hopes that wayward witches will find them and they can rebuild again. This means that things are about to get very busy around here. Zoe is worried about retaliation from the ignorant, bigoted public, and so she plans on casting just about every ward and shielding spell she can get her hands on.

So she doesn’t really have time to think too hard about the shoe right now. But she keeps it safe in her closet, hoping that maybe one day Madison will DM her with some bitchy line, demanding that Zoe will mail the shoe to her first class.

Deep down, she knows that something is off. She just doesn’t know that this (ugly) shoe is actually the beginning of the end.

xx

All in all, she’s really grateful that Fiona was able to bring a lot of Kyle’s intelligence back before she died. Zoe knows that Fiona didn’t do it for her, but it was a gift all the same. It’s much less stressful to be around him when she’s not consumed with guilt around the fact that he’s basically a walking zombie, frustrated by his own inability to communicate basic needs, trapped in his own mind.

There are days when she truly regrets what they did. She and Madison were nothing more than children, playing with forces they didn’t understand and allowing this poor boy to get caught in the crossfire of their power trip. She’s happy to have Kyle back, but even now, she wonders if the cost was too great. What right did she have to bring him back anyway? She didn’t even know him when he died. She’d just wanted to soothe her own loneliness.

Some nights, when Kyle’s arms are wrapped too tightly around her, his body too hot and the weight of him too heavy, Zoe falls into a restless sleep. When she dreams, she sees herself back in the greenhouse, gun pointed at Kyle’s head while he’s chained helplessly to the wooden post. She looks at him, feels nothing but disgust, and pulls the trigger. The second she sees the light leave his eyes, she is consumed with relief.

One time, Madison is there with her. After Zoe pulls the trigger, Madison looks at her with a satisfied smirk.

“Thanks, bitch. That’s twice that you’ve avenged me now. I’m starting to think you might be a little bit gay for me.”

Zoe wakes with a gasp, but even consciousness cannot erase the memory of that smirk from her mind.

xx

Divining in a bathtub is not as glamorous as it sounds, but it is something she’s good at.

Zoe waits until Kyle isn’t around. He’s out acting as Cordelia’s bodyguard for the day, so she gets out the candles and looks for answers in the surface of the water.

Madison does pack her bags, but she never leaves the academy. Zoe feels tears slip down her cheeks as she stares wide-eyed at the water, watching Kyle choke the life out of Madison until her lips turn blue and her eyes reflect his face like glass. At Spalding’s insistence, he buries the body out back and burns all of Madison’s clothes.

There is a moment of denial, and then she quickly remembers that Kyle is absolutely capable of such a thing. What she can’t believe, though, is that he stood there and told her with a straight face that he watched Madison pack her bags and leave the house perfectly intact.

When Kyle returns home that evening, Zoe sits on Madison’s bed holding the shoe that Madison left behind—the shoe that Kyle missed while cleaning up his mess. Kyle’s face pales when he sees it. The dopey smile he had plastered on his face at the sight of her slides right off.

Zoe feels sick. She thinks of him clinging to her like a puppy, sleeping soundly, living his perfect life with no remorse. In an instant, whatever affection she has for him, whatever hope that they might have their happily ever after, instantly dries up.

“Zoe,” Kyle starts, taking a cautious step forward. “I can explain…”

She chucks the shoe at his face in a fit of white hot rage. He cowers from her, shocked by her reaction. She’s a little surprised at herself, too. It’s not as if she ever really liked Madison. But she also doesn’t intend to suffer a liar who murdered one of her sisters in cold blood.

“I did it for you,” Kyle pleads, swiping at the blood on his freshly split lip.

Zoe brings him to his knees with a turn of her wrist.

“I never asked you to.”

xx

The penalty for causing bodily harm to a witch is death by fire. Even if that witch happens to be Madison Montgomery.

Cordelia looks at her with pity when the decision is made. She’s just been through this herself with Myrtle. But there’s nothing to pity. This is Zoe’s fault. And somehow she always knew they’d end up here.

Kyle begs and pleads and cries. He tugs at the bottom of her skirt and promises to do anything she asks to make it up to her. Zoe tries her hardest to ignore him, but she’s not that person. She cries for him, but his fate is sealed.

As the gasoline pours over him, he stares at her—defeated and betrayed, accepting his fate, but never understanding why it had to happen to him. Zoe stares back. Even as the flames engulf him, even as he screams, she never looks away. The sight will haunt her for the rest of her days, but that is her punishment for what she did to him.

Kyle Spencer was not meant to survive that bus crash. No person, witch or otherwise, can truly escape their destiny. Zoe was a fool to think that she could decide when it was his time to die. Because of her, Kyle’s second attempt at life was full of confusion and pain, eventually leading to a death much worse than the first one he suffered.

She sobs for days afterward, until her body has no physical tears left in it. She lets herself spiral into self-loathing, thinking about how selfish she’s been. In the end, she thinks she never really had Kyle at all. Not the way that she wanted him. Not the way that he was before he died. All she ever had were fragments, pieces stitched together with cheap magic and whatever Fiona decided to wedge in there afterwards. His death, and Madison’s, will rattle around in her chest until she takes her last breath.

xx

When she finally drags herself out of her room, Cordelia welcomes her back with a long hug, stroking Zoe’s hair in a way that makes her feel like she can breathe a little easier.

“We have some house cleaning to do,” Zoe says.

That’s how she, Cordelia, and Queenie end up in the attic, banishing Spalding’s ghost from the house and disposing of all of his paraphernalia. They also find the baby he’s been taking care of, which is just about the creepiest thing that Zoe has ever seen, and are thankfully able to return the girl to her parents.

And with that, it’s time for Zoe to move on with her life.

xx

The school starts filling up with girls of all ages. Some of them are eager to learn control, happy to find a place where they belong (their “tribe”, as Misty would have called it). Others are simply dumped on their doorstep by families who want nothing to do with them.

All of them need a teacher, and Zoe needs something to do. It ends up being easier than she expects. She likes working with the girls, teaching them history and theory, watching their powers develop and grow. Each of them is unique and talented in their own special way.

Two years go by without much fanfare. The coven grows and Cordelia looks fulfilled, if still a little haunted. Zoe heals little by little, but she never forgets or really forgives herself.

Then Misty returns from the dead like a dream and everything changes in ways that none of them will understand for weeks to come.

xx

Zoe is ecstatic to see Misty alive and well and attending her classes as if she never left. Misty was always sweet, and Zoe has never felt that her untimely demise was just. She’s never seen Cordelia happier, and thinks that maybe finally their Supreme will get the ending she’s always deserved.

But around here, people die and come back to life all the time. To Zoe, the real enigma is Mallory. Cordelia may be too distracted by her true love returning to the land of the living and all of the complications that come with that to pay attention, but that’s why she has Zoe.

Mallory has a talent for magic that Zoe hasn’t seen since Fiona died. But where Fiona’s magic was full of malice and self-service, Mallory’s is fresh and gentle, like spring air. Its power comes from its beauty and effortlessness. And it can’t possibly be a coincidence that she interacts with this house and the people in it like she’s seen it all before. She stays up late at night with her nose buried in books. She’s researching something, looking for answers, but Zoe doesn’t know what the question is.

“She’s probably just a damn nerd who’s happy to finally have a place where she’s special. You know you white girls love that shit,” Queenie says, completely unconcerned when Zoe comes to her with theories and questions.

“But what if it’s something different? What if she’s the most powerful witch we’ve ever seen? What if she’s the next Supreme?” Zoe says.

Queenie scoffs and continues filing her nails.

“So what if she is? That’s the natural order of things, isn’t it? Why are you so worried about it?”

The answer to that question is blindingly obvious and Queenie knows her well enough to know without asking. Zoe can adapt to change, but that doesn’t mean that she likes it. They’ve finally settled into a good place. She’s finally figured out a way to be pretty content with her life. If Mallory truly is as powerful as she seems, sweeping in here with Misty on her heels and the ability to do advanced level magic, that means that change is definitely coming. And Zoe isn’t ready for that just yet.

xx

Mallory bursts into her room several weeks later with panicked eyes, struggling to catch her breath.

“Zoe,” she pants, startling Zoe out of her lesson planning for the next week, “I need your help.”

She proceeds to tell Zoe the most ridiculous story about how she’s been here before and she used a super rare power called _tempus infinitum_ to travel back in time and help avert the apocalypse.

“Anyway, I think Cordelia’s going to figure it out any minute now, but I haven’t accomplished nearly as much as I wanted to before she does. So I need to do this quickly before she tries to stop me,” Mallory explains.

She’s talking so fast and making no sense. Zoe has absolutely no idea what the hell she’s talking about.

“Sorry, what is it that you need my help with?” she asks.

Mallory takes a steadying breath.

“I think I figured out a way to bring Madison back.”

Zoe nearly chokes on her own spit.

“Madison Montgomery? How do you even know about her?”

“Weren’t you just listening to my time travel story?” Mallory asks incredulously.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you were serious,” Zoe replies. She blows out a breath and rubs her fingers through her hair. “If you know Madison, why the hell would you want to bring her back to life?”

Mallory runs a hand over Zoe’s bedspread.

“This used to be her bed, right? Why’d you take it after she died?”

Zoe doesn’t answer that. She doesn’t know how. What would Mallory know of guilt and regret that swirls and festers in your gut until it makes you sick? How can she explain her need to be closer to it?

“I know Madison is rough around the edges,” Mallory continues.

“She’s a bitch, you mean,” Zoe supplies with a dark chuckle that causes Mallory to grimace. “She watched me die and then refused to bring me back to life so that she could steal my boyfriend.”

“The Madison I knew wasn’t perfect, but she also wasn’t a monster,” Mallory explains. “She was still harsh, but she was also brave and she cared about this coven. She sacrificed herself to give me more time to destroy Michael. She’s capable of change and she deserves the chance to try.”

Of all of the things that Mallory has told her about the past (or is it the future?), this part is honestly the least believable. And yet, if even part of it is true—if Mallory can bring Madison back—then that’s got to be worth something.

Cordelia is definitely going to kill them when she finds out.

xx

Madison looks exactly the same. She’s even wearing the same exact outfit as the last time Zoe saw her. It’s hard to wrap her head around the fact that she’s two years older, while Madison has technically been frozen in time.

And yet, Madison’s eyes tell a different story. The same stale words may fall from her mouth, but they’ve lost all of their bite. At least part of her has been defeated. She carries the weight of too much time spent in Hell. Or maybe just enough time.

Zoe is charged with taking Madison out shopping for clothes and other essentials since Kyle burned all of her things. She’s not exactly looking forward to spending quality time with someone that spent the better part of six months either fucking her and their shared boyfriend or trying to kill her, but there are also probably worse ways to spend time. She’s worried about Cordelia, who is fading fast as Mallory’s powers grow. Hopefully Madison’s endless bitching will help take her mind off of things for a bit.

“Do they still keep Fiona’s stash of cigarettes in the parlor?” Madison asks as they tromp down the stairs towards the door.

“No. Cordelia got rid of them once the younger girls started arriving,” Zoe says.

“Christ,” Madison rolls her eyes. “Should have just stayed in Hell.”

“Did they let you smoke there?”

“No, but at least I expected it to suck balls.”

So they stop for cigarettes on their way to the mall, and Zoe watches out of the corner of her eye while Madison closes her eyes against a long drag.

“So,” Madison says, directing her gaze on Zoe in a way that’s completely unnerving, “where’s your murderous lapdog?”

Somehow Zoe knew this would be one of the first topics of conversation. Madison never shies away from uncomfortable things. She seeks them out like some sort of snuffling truffle pig. Still, the question cuts deeper than she was expecting. She knows better than to blame Madison for Kyle’s death, but the whole situation is still incredibly fucked up.

“He’s gone. After I found out what he did to you, he was put to the stake.”

Madison is not easily surprised, but it seems that she wasn’t expecting that. She stares for several long seconds before finally turning back to finish her cigarette. They spend the rest of their trip in silence until they reach the mall, at which point Madison has plenty of shit to say about the state of common consumer fashion.

xx

Misty is fixing tea in the kitchen when they return with arms full of shopping bags. Mallory rushes over to help them lighten their load, and Madison doesn’t hesitate to dump her bags into the future Supreme’s hands.

“Tell your bestie to give her rich daddy my regards for the new wardrobe,” Madison says, and Zoe finds it extremely distasteful, but Mallory doesn’t seem bothered.

Misty ignores them all while she waits for her tea to brew, something floral and herbaceous. Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth and she taps her nails absentmindedly on the counter. There’s enough worry etched into her brow to leave a mark.

“So you’re the new Supreme, huh?” Madison asks Mallory, who clearly grits her teeth at the question. “Cordy didn’t last very long, although I guess that’s not a surprise.”

“Madison!” Zoe snaps. Madison raises an eyebrow in challenge, but Zoe will not allow this kind of cruelty in front of Misty. “Stop being so fucking nasty or I’ll send you back to Hell where you belong.”

To her surprise, Madison smirks at that.

“Is that a promise?” she asks, voice low and dark like honey, and is she seriously flirting at a time like this?

“I think this is ready,” Mallory says, gently taking the tea from Misty’s grasp. “I’m going to take it up to Cordelia now.”

Misty snaps out of whatever reverie she was in with a slight jump and nods at Mallory with a distracted smile. Once Mallory takes her leave, Misty turns to look at Madison and Zoe, as if she’s just now noticing their arrival.

“I’m glad you’re back, Madison,” she says, and it’s actually genuine because everything that Misty does is genuine. “No one should have to live out eternity in that awful place.”

Madison has never been great at accepting kindness, so it takes her a moment to respond. But when she does, her voice is surprisingly gentle.

“Thanks, Swampy. And don’t worry about Cordy. If she survived the descent from Fiona’s demon womb, she can survive anything.”

Misty manages a smile at that. Zoe tries not to look too surprised, but she knows she’s been caught staring when Madison glares at her.

“Can I help you?” she snaps, before storming outside to have another cigarette.

xx

Madison sits in on classes for about a week, but she doesn’t speak or participate unless asked. When Zoe asks her to demonstrate pyrokinesis on Monday, she incinerates the feather Zoe’s holding with a careless flick of her wrist. When she asks Madison to demonstrate transmutation on Wednesday, Madison flickers out of existence with a smirk, only to appear a second later pressed against Zoe’s back. Her perfume is a distraction, and the heat of her body is enough to make Zoe clear her throat uncomfortably.

Zoe doesn’t ask for anymore demonstrations after that, but Madison stops coming to class shortly afterwards anyway. A few weeks later, she disappears from the house entirely for days at a time.

Cordelia has periods of fatigue that require her to stay in bed some days. It kills her to be removed from her girls like this, but they take turns sitting with her when they can. Misty spends the most time by Cordelia’s side, but when Zoe walks in one day to find Madison perched at the bottom of Cordelia’s bed with crossed legs, she blinks in surprise and slows her steps inside of the room.

“The owlish blinking isn’t a good look, String Bean,” Madison says with a smirk.

She unfolds her legs gracefully and hops off the bed.

“I’ll call you when I get to L.A.,” she says to Cordelia, who smiles and squeezes Madison’s hand before she goes.

Zoe waits for her to leave before she takes Madison’s spot on the bed.

“Is Madison moving back to California?” she asks.

Cordelia chuckles.

“Surprisingly, no. She’s going to do an interview with a radio station there. I’ve asked her to be the coven’s ambassador.”

“She seems...happy,” Zoe observes, and it’s a word she never thought she’d use to describe Madison Montgomery.

“She just needs someone to believe in her,” Cordelia says.

Maybe that’s true. And really, that is what Cordelia excels at. She believes in all of them when no one else will—when their families have tossed them aside and even believing in themselves is too much to ask. This is what makes Cordelia a Supreme that any one of them would be willing to die for. It’s why Mallory is spending sleepless nights in the attic trying to find a way to reverse the Supremacy and save Cordelia.

“I thought I might hate her after everything that happened,” Zoe says. “But I don’t.”

“That’s because you’re a good person, Zoe.”

Cordelia shifts a bit, then winces and coughs as she rides out a wave of pain. Zoe wishes that she could do something to help. She would take Cordelia’s sickness onto herself if she could. But this is between Cordelia and Mallory alone. All Zoe can do is take care of the coven when Cordelia can’t. The rest is up to Mallory.

xx

The attic is a mess. The floor is cluttered with books, pillows, blankets, and snacks strewn in a circle surrounding the area where Mallory usually camps out. Coco has been staying with her most days to keep watch in case something goes horribly wrong. Zoe and Queenie come up to check on them a few times a day.

Today, when Zoe enters the attic in the evening before she heads to bed, she finds Madison sitting with Mallory and Coco. She raises her eyebrows in surprise before she can help herself. She didn’t even know Madison was back from her trip, let alone hanging out up here.

Madison looks like she’s still wearing yesterday’s eyeliner. There are circles under her eyes that come from lack of sleep, and her hair is pulled back messily. She’s wearing an oversized sweatshirt and a pair of black leggings. It’s a look Zoe’s never seen on her before, but she has to admit that it’s working for her.

“See something you like, Beanstalk?” Madison asks smugly.

That’s all it takes to break the spell. Zoe rolls her eyes and takes a seat beside Coco on the floor.

“Any progress?” she asks.

“Define progress,” Madison replies. “I caught Cordy and her bayou babe making out earlier today. Does that count? I thought they were going to strangle us all with their sexual tension, but it seems like being on her deathbed has forced Cordy to grow a pair.”

“They’re so cute together,” Coco says. “I’m glad they’re happy.”

Zoe’s glad, too. Misty brings a calm joy to Cordelia that almost makes her jealous. They deserve whatever happiness they can get.

“I have a theory,” Mallory says in response to Zoe’s question. “I think I can reverse the Supremacy for a little while, but I need to test it out before I try it on Cordelia.”

“What is it?” Zoe asks.

“I should be able to use _tempus infinitum_ to take both Cordelia and myself back to a time before I started taking on her power,” Mallory explains. “I’ve just never done it like this before, so I don’t know if it’ll work.”

“You can test it on me,” Madison says, and Zoe’s head whips around to look at her. “What? I want to see Cordelia stick around as much as the rest of you. And what’s the worst that can happen if Girl Wonder screws up?”

“You might die,” Zoe says. She’s suddenly very irritated, but she doesn’t care to examine that emotion right now.

“I’m touched that you care,” Madison says, voice laced with sarcasm. “I’ll be fine. Hell’s not the worst place I’ve ever been.”

Zoe huffs, but there’s nothing she can do. They need to save Cordelia, and if Madison can help, then who is she to stop her? She ignores the panic that grips her at the thought of something bad happening to Madison because it doesn’t make sense. What is Madison to her, other than an occasional pain in the ass?

The rest is dangerous. It involves Madison allowing Mallory to steal some of her life force, only to use her time traveling power to give it back. Madison falls unconscious when her energy is taken away, and Zoe has to catch her as she slumps over. She positions Madison’s head in her lap, stroking the girl’s hair absentmindedly.

Mallory’s eyes dilate with the influx of power. For a second, Zoe considers how fucked they’d all be if Mallory suddenly decided she liked the feeling of being that powerful. But Mallory is not Fiona. She grabs Madison’s hands and begins chanting in Latin. There’s a wave of energy exchanged between the two of them that even Zoe can feel, and suddenly Maddison gasps awake. She looks fine, like nothing ever happened.

Mallory, however, looks like she’s been hit by an eighteen-wheeler. Coco supports her weight as her eyes flutter for a moment before she steadies herself.

“I think it worked,” she says with a weak smile.

“No shit,” Madison says, and she doesn’t seem extremely intent on removing herself from Zoe’s lap. Which is fine. Totally fine. “If being the next Supreme doesn’t work out, you could definitely make a living selling that little party trick. That was better than any line of coke.”

“I know a few rich ladies in Beverly Hills who would be interested,” Coco offers, which earns a chuckle from Mallory.

“Thanks, guys. I’ll keep that in mind once I’m done saving our current Supreme.”

xx

A few days later, Mallory actually does it. Zoe wasn’t completely convinced that it was possible, but when she sees Cordelia come bouncing down the stairs, radiant and energetic, she knows what happened. Misty follows behind her with a smile that could outshine the sun, and Zoe is suddenly filled with peace and contentment. This coven is a true family and she couldn’t be prouder to be part of it.

When Zoe returns to her room later, she finds Madison sitting on her bed, legs dangling over the side as she picks at her nails.

“Looks like we’re all one big, happy family again,” she says.

She doesn’t look happy. She looks anxious and irritated. Zoe hovers just inside the doorway, afraid to approach in case this is some kind of ambush. She hasn’t seen Madison this moody in a while, and she’s not fond of the unpredictability of it all.

“Is everything okay, Madison?” Zoe asks carefully.

Madison’s eyes flick up and lock onto her. Zoe doesn’t know what this look is that she’s getting. It looks like Madison wants to devour her, which could either be good and bad. The problem is that Zoe can’t tell the difference.

“You know, when I came back to life the first time, I couldn’t feel anything. My whole body was just numb. I used to spend a lot of time and money chasing that feeling, but to experience it to that extent was fucking awful. It was worse than being dead. Part of me was kind of relieved when Kyle finally choked the life out of me again.”

The fact that Zoe doesn’t flinch at the mention of Kyle is an achievement, in her book. But she has no idea where Madison is going with any of this, so she waits silently on edge for the point of the story.

“But this time is different. This time, I feel everything too much, like a raw, open sore. I walk around this house and I see everyone being close and happy and in love, and it all burns like salt in my eyes and I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me.”

Madison stands and begins walking toward Zoe. It’s not a threatening approach. If anything, she seems vulnerable. Zoe keeps her guard up and stands her ground. It feels like she’s teetering on the edge of something vastly important that she’s too blind to see.

“You want to be part of it,” Zoe says quietly. “You want to experience those things, too. But you don’t know how. No one ever taught you.”

Madison stops directly in front of her, too close for comfort, but Zoe isn’t worried anymore. They share the same air, and Madison’s eyes are sad in a way that Zoe has never seen before. She reaches up to tuck Zoe’s hair behind her ear, the touch gentler than Zoe ever thought Madison could be capable of.

“It doesn’t hurt when you’re around. It doesn’t feel like I’m always being ripped open again and again. I’m tired of being alone and I’m tired of feeling like this all the time. I want to feel something different for a change,” Madison pleads.

Zoe kisses her. Of course she does. What choice does she have when Madison looks at her like that? They have always had this tension between them, and Zoe has had enough wallowing and self-loathing to last a lifetime.

Madison whimpers when they meet. Her kisses are sharp and desperate, like she’s searching for a promise in the depths of their entanglement. Zoe can’t promise anything, but at least she can offer this much.

Falling into bed with Madison is easy. Easier than the first time, perhaps, when they were both competing for the attention of a dead boy and every kiss exchanged was more of an attack than anything. Now they challenge each other, but not out of malice. Their only aim is to find comfort in one another; _for_ one another.

Of course, there’s an unspoken rule that whoever lands on top wins, but this is one game that Zoe is content to lose.

xx

So that’s how it starts. And they’re not dating, exactly—at least, Zoe wouldn’t call it that. How do you date someone who lives in the same boarding house as you when the majority of your time is spent stolen in quiet corners of the house? But they are seeing each other, whatever that means.

Madison goes all over the country whenever Cordelia needs her to, and she sends Zoe pictures of stupid things she sees during her travels that make Zoe laugh. When she comes home, she grabs at Zoe possessively, dragging her into destabilizing kisses that leave her flushed and wanting. It’s nothing like Zoe pictured when she was a little girl, but it is theirs alone, and she likes that about it.

xx

They’re in the kitchen just before Madison leaves for a three day trip to Boston. Zoe’s making coffee, which Madison steals to pour herself a thermos before it’s even finished brewing, causing the coffee to drip and sizzle on the hot plate below.

“Hey!” Zoe exclaims indignantly.

“Oh shut up, String Bean,” Madison says with an eye roll, smacking Zoe’s ass. “Is the coffee made of gold? Jesus.”

“So rude,” Zoe says with a laugh.

Madison shoots her a small smile. “My Uber’s here; I have to go,” she says.

Zoe leans down to give her a kiss on the cheek, and Madison tangles their fingers together gently, only separating as she walks away.

“The two of you make a good match,” Cordelia says from the doorway.

Zoe smirks and pours them both a cup of coffee.

“Uh huh. And when am I getting a baby swamp sister?” she asks, earning a snort from Cordelia.

“I have enough kids to look after.”

“True,” Zoe agrees. “We’ve come a long way.”

Cordelia smiles and squeezes Zoe’s hand.

“I think we’re just getting started.”


End file.
